Richard M Daley

Chicago officials predict that 70% of the 1.56 million voters will cast ballots in today ' s mayoral election. Whites make up 48% of registered voters, blacks 42% and Latinos 7%. The winner will complete the last two years of the late Harold Washington's second term. A poll released Monday by The Daily Chicago Southtown Economist and WBBM-TV gave Daley 51% to 35% for Evans and 3% for Vrdolyak, with 11% undecided. TIMOTHY C.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley downplayed the lawlessness on the city's West Side that was triggered by the worst power outage in a decade. "There was no chaos. There was no rioting. There was no strong looting there. But you get the impression (from the coverage) it was like chaos out there," Daley told a news conference. Police Supt. LeRoy Martin said 83 people had been arrested for burglary, mob action, looting, firearms violations, theft or property damage.

Mayor Richard M. Daley swept to reelection Tuesday amid record-low voter turnout, winning his first full term in the office his father held longer than any other mayor. In an unofficial count of 991 of the city's 2,912 precincts, Daley had 151,401 votes to 46,337 for Harold Washington Party candidate R. Eugene Pincham and 8,185 for Republican George Gottlieb. The easy victory is expected to pave the way for Daley to take a more vocal leadership role in the city's Administration.

Incumbent Richard M. Daley swamped the opposition in the Democratic mayoral primary here Tuesday, bringing him within an eyelash of resurrecting the legendary City Hall dynasty established by his father 36 years ago. In trouncing two well-known rivals, including the standard-bearer of a broad coalition of black political and community activists, the Irish-American Daley may also have quelled years of ugly, racially tinged battles for control of the nation's third-largest city.

On a frozen primary day marred by historically low turnout and claims of rampant polling place intimidation, Mayor Richard M. Daley won an easy victory toward a third term while several candidates linked to street gangs neared winning enough votes to assure runoff elections. Daley, whose powerful campaign organization was buttressed by endorsements from Sen.

Richard M. Daley was sworn in as 45th mayor on Monday--his 47th birthday--and promised he would be a conductor who would orchestrate harmony in the city his father led for 21 years. "The old ways of doing things simply aren't adequate to cope with the new challenges we face," said Daley, whose victory over two black opponents earlier this year split the vote sharply along racial lines. Daley used Orchestra Hall, site of the ceremony, as a theme for his speech. He said the patchwork of a city is like a collection of instruments that can make beautiful music only when they work together.

There's a strange new sound echoing through the halls and back rooms of government in Chicago, where politics has so often been measured in decibels. It's called silence. For much of the last decade, Carl Sandburg's City of Big Shoulders seemed more like the Center of Crass Loudmouths. Black and white politicians united mostly in their disdain for one another and weren't afraid to say it.

Eight days after a massive power outage sent Bettye Gill and her husband cruising pitch black streets fearfully looking for their daughter, eight days after Andy Abdellaziz and his family lost most of the merchandise in their grocery store to thieves who struck under cover of darkness, eight days after Jeri Jackson spent a sleepless night at her liquor store to keep away roving bands of looters, the same impoverished area of Chicago was struck again Sunday.

As the city wrestles with a projected $220-million budget deficit, Mayor Richard M. Daley on Tuesday proposed increasing Chicago's sales tax to 9% -- a move that would put it among the highest in the nation -- and asked the City Council to cut hundreds of municipal jobs. The changes would coincide with his ongoing effort to curb costs by privatizing some city jobs and assets, moves that have exasperated many in this union-dominated town.